Comrades 2014 Bronze Medal Programme by Lindsey Parry – Official coach of the Comrades Marathon Association

The 2014 Comrades is a DOWN run, for the uninitiated don’t think for a moment this is an easy direction. You still climb an enormous amount; however it is the 10km of downhill between the top of Bothas (39km to go) and the bottom of Fields Hill that the major damage is done to your legs. It is for that reason that you should consider adding a day or two of strength training to your routine.

For now the focus should be on building consistency into your running. Success on 1 June will be determined by the work you do day to day, week to week and month to month. Doing too much now and having to miss training later through injury starts to put the Comrades into doubt. Start short and easy so you can build up to long and easy over time.

This programme is time based so people of more experience and greater running ability will get relatively more out of the programme and progress faster. Time based programs also prevent you from settling on a route that you need to run faster every time you do it. It is easier to maintain discipline and run easy on easy days. The aim is to be able to run a sub 5:00 marathon before Comrades.

Because you will employ a run walk strategy for your Qualifier, Long run and Comrades we will use this strategy in training. Very important to note about run walk strategy is that the walk is not a Sunday stroll but fast walking with purpose. It is a change in focus on the muscles not a “rest”.

There are recovery weeks built into the programme every 4 weeks, do not be tempted to do more as this will only compromise you later in the programme, leading to injury, illness and under performance in goal races.

Note that training days are interchangeable, if your club does hill training on a different day or club long runs on a different day then you can change days around.

Lastly, even though it is a down run there are plenty of hills to run up and since this is most people weakness we will be preparing you with some hill sessions. Repeats are to be done at 5km race pace (not a full blown sprint) with a gentle recovery down the hill.

Enjoy the training!

 

October 2013:

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
7 Oct	REST	30min easy running	REST	45min easy running	REST	30min easy running	Run 1hr easy with 1min walk every 5km
14 Oct	REST	35min easy running	REST	50min easy running	REST	35min easy running	Run 1hr05 easy with 1min walk every 5km
21 Oct	REST	40min easy running	REST	55min easy running	REST	40min easy running	Run 1hr10 easy with 1min walk every 5km
28 Oct	REST	35min easy running	REST	45min easy running

 

November 2013:

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
1 Nov					REST	35min easy running	Run 1hr10 easy with 1min walk every 5km
4 Nov	REST	45min easy running	REST	1hr easy running	REST	45min easy running	Run 1hr15 easy with 1min walk every 5km
11 Nov	REST	50min easy running	REST	1hr05 easy running	REST	50min easy running	Run 1hr20 easy with 1min walk every 5km
18 Nov	REST	55min easy running	REST	1hr10 easy running	REST	55min easy running	Run 1hr30 easy with 1min walk every 5km
25 Nov	REST	45min easy running	REST	1hr easy running	REST	45min easy running

 

December 2013:

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
1 Dec							Run 1hr15 easy with 1min walk every 5km
2 Dec	REST	1hr easy running	REST	1hr15 easy running	REST	1hr15 easy running	Run 1hr40 easy with 1min walk every 5km
9 Dec	REST	1hr05 easy running	REST	1hr15 easy running	REST	1hr20 easy running	Run 1hr50 easy with 1min walk every 5km
16 Dec	REST	1hr10 easy running	REST	1hr15 easy running	REST	1hr25 easy running	Run 2hrs easy with 1min walk every 5km
23 Dec	REST	1hr easy running	REST	REST	1hr easy running	1hr15 easy running	Run 1hr easy with 1min walk every 5km
30 Dec	REST	Old Years Eve 10km	REST	1hr15 easy running	REST	Run 1hr30 easy with 1min walk every 5km	Run 2hrs15 easy with 1min walk every 5km

 

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